The Long Midnight Of Barney Thomson

by Douglas Lindsay

'Where's my dinner?'

  'Programme'll be finished in a couple of minutes, dear.' Had Bill really lost his voice, or was he just doing it so that Charles wouldn't realise that Emma still loved Tom?

  Barney grunted loudly and wandered off into the sitting room. He flicked on the television, found the snooker on BBC2 and within five minutes was sound asleep.

  *

  The rain struck relentlessly against the window of the dingy little office. Detective Chief Inspector Robert Holdall stared gloomily at the water cascading from the gutters outside and wondered what other disasters could befall him. As he had occasion to do most days, he tried to remember what it was that had made him want to be a policeman in the first place. Action, adventure, glamour, women. Obviously it'd been none of that, so what had it been? A vague desire to fight the forces of evil? Something like that. He'd had the thought in the past that it was because of the sixties Batman TV series, and had spent a lot of time since persuading himself that it wasn't that at all. That would be just too sad. Thwack! Biff! Blam! Love your tights...

  The lure of the flashing blue light, that was all. Just the lure of the flashing blue light. He could be driving an ambulance.

  There was a knock at his door and a young constable walked into his office. Not long removed from school, the dregs of adolescent acne still clinging wildly to his face, barnacles to a boat. He closed the door behind him and stood before Holdall, nervously awaiting the invitation to talk.

  'Constable?'

  'Sir. The results from the lab are negative, sir.'

  Bugger.

  Why are you thinking bugger, Holdall? Of course the results are negative. You're not dealing with an amateur here. You're dealing with some seasoned killer who knows what he's doing. And who's intent on mocking you every step of the way.

  'All right, Montgomery.' He wondered as he said it if this really was Constable Montgomery. 'Will you ask MacPherson to come in here, please?'

  The constable nodded and disappeared back through the door, leaving a trace of Clearasil in the air. Holdall leant back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, his feet up on the desk. Where did they stand?

  Five murders. No corpses, just body parts mailed through the post to the victims' families. Never anything from the package to help them trace the killer. Always postmarked from a different town in Scotland; always a note sent to the police at the same time, each one more laden with derision than the one before. When he caught the guy, which he was sure he'd do, before going through the formalities of making the arrest, he was going to kick his head in.

  The door opened and Detective Sergeant MacPherson walked into the room. He was a big man, who had in his day played full-back for West of Scotland, but after being sent off for the eleventh time had decided to save his brutality for the job.

  Holdall watched him as he entered the room. He liked him, enjoyed the Barbarian pleasure of working with him. It made him feel safer, if nothing else. And for all his brawn and thuggery, he was a good man. Intelligent with it.

  'Take a seat, Sergeant. Won't keep you long. I presume you'll be wanting to get home.'

  MacPherson shrugged his giant shoulders. 'There's some football I wouldn't mind watching. It's not that important.'

  'That English Premier league stuff?'

  'Aye.'

  'Don't know how you can be bothered with it. Seems like a load of shite to me.'

  He looked away from MacPherson, took his feet off the desk and swivelled round, so that he was side on to the other man. MacPherson knew what was coming, sat and waited patiently for it. Another examination of the facts. Another run through the salient information. Another drive down the road to nowhere. They were in exactly the same place they had been since the first murder, and all there was for them to do was talk. However, he understood Holdall's need to do it.

  'Roberts tell you about the lab report?' said MacPherson.

  Roberts! Bugger. That was it. Who was Montgomery? Felt a slight redness in his face as he remembered. WPC Eileen Montgomery.

  'Aye, aye he did,' said Holdall, shaking his head. He put his hands down, clasping them on his stomach. Felt like he should be giving some leadership to the investigation, but the tank was empty. He had no ideas.

  'Where does it leave us, Sergeant? Where are we at?'

  MacPherson considered.

  'We're in a pile of shite,' he said.

  Holdall smiled. That was just about right.

  MacPherson continued his recap of events.

  'We're nowhere. We've got some eejit running around Glasgow committing indiscriminate murder, then visiting other parts of Scotland to send back a slice of body. No connection between the victims, other than that they've all been men. Don't know if there's any significance to that. Certainly doesn't appear to be a gay thing, and hard to imagine a woman doing all this stuff. But you never know, can't rule it out. Not these days. Anyway, nothing to link the places the body parts have been getting sent back from…'

  'Which have been?'

  'Pitlochry, Edinburgh, Kingussie, Largs and Aberdeen. We've checked out hotel guest lists in those places for the nights that the packages were posted, but there hasn't been anyone who stayed in more than one of them. We've spoken to everyone from Glasgow who stayed overnight in these towns on the relevant dates, but they all had their reason for being there, and there was nothing suspicious. There've been a few people that we can't trace, and it could be that he left false names and addresses, but it could also mean nothing. There's no reason why someone couldn't have got the train to any one of they places and back again in the same day.'

  Holdall nodded, then grunted.

  'That's about it, isn't it, Stuart? Everywhere he goes is on a main rail route, so we can maybe assume that he's been taking the train. So that narrows it down.'

  'Sir?'

  'All we have to do is arrest everyone in Glasgow who doesn't have a car.'

  MacPherson smiled. The idea appealed. Too bad it wasn't practical.

  'Anything else, Sergeant?'

  MacPherson marshalled his thoughts, then continued in his low voice.

  'There's no connection with the body parts that he's sending back. So far we've had an ear, a right hand, a right hand and left foot together, a left leg, and then on Friday we had a head.'

  Holdall shook his head, still unable to comprehend the awfulness of the crime. Killing someone, beheading them, and then mailing the head back to the family, when they'd probably still been under the impression that the bloke had run away to Blackpool for a few days. Couldn't think about it too closely. You couldn't do that on this job and stay sane.

  'This is a sick bastard we're dealing with, Sergeant, a sick bastard.'

  MacPherson nodded, continued talking.

  'So far we've no idea what he's doing with the remainder of the bodies. Certainly, if he's got rid of them, we don't know where.' He paused, thinking for a second or two. 'I don't think there's anything else, sir.'

  Holdall shook his head, staring wearily at the floor.

  'No, Sergeant, you're right. There isn't. We've got some sick bastard carving up the citizens of Glasgow, they're expecting us to do something about it, and we haven't the faintest idea what that is.'

  For a fleeting second MacPherson felt pity for him. He knew he took his cases personally. But it was all part of the job, and Holdall had been doing it long enough to accept the weight of expectation.

  Holdall turned round in his chair, placed his hands decisively on the desk, looked MacPherson firmly in the eye.

  'There's nothing else for it, Sergeant. Take the list off the system of everyone in Glasgow who owns a car, and then arrest everyone else.'

  MacPherson raised his eyebrows, until the look on Holdall's face told him he was joking. Of course he was. If they did that they would have to arrest too many councillors currently off the roads on drink driving charges. The stink would be unbelievable.

  They smiled and, with a wave of the hand, Holdall dismissed the Serg
eant from his office.

  'Have a good evening, Sergeant. Who's playing?'

  MacPherson thought about it then shrugged. 'Who cares? Football is as football does, eh, sir?' He turned and walked from the office.

  Holdall nodded. 'You can't say fairer than that,' he said to the empty room. He looked out at the Gothic darkness of early evening, the rain now hammering against the window. Allowed his chin to slump into the palm of his hand. 'Fuck,' he said softly, before rising slowly from the chair.

  4

  Death Row

  Barney looked on proudly as his finest haircut of the month walked from the shop. The lad had wanted his hair cut by Chris, but there had been too many people in the queue ahead of him, forcing him to settle on Barney. And he had shown him what real barbery was all about. The haircut had been a peach. A non-technical short back and sides job, low difficulty certainly, but executed with beautiful panache nonetheless. Even and neat on the top, tapered to geometric perfection around the ears and the back of the neck. Barbery at its finest, he thought to himself, from one of the best exponents of the art in the west of Scotland.

  He glanced at the other two to see if they'd noticed, but Chris was too busy discussing the on-going plight of Partick Thistle, while Wullie was contemplating the exact nature of the relationship between Laurence Olivier and Danny Kaye. Barney shrugged. If they were too busy discussing trivialities to notice real genius, then that was their problem.

  He turned and surveyed the shop, feeling good about himself. A warm glow. Like the pilot who lands the plane in a storm without a bump, or the teacher who discovers the one pupil in a thousand who understands triple differentiation, the barber who carries out the perfect haircut has reason to be proud.

  It was a small shop. A row of four chairs along one side next to the great bank of mirrors, and a long cushioned bench along the other, upon which the customers awaited their fate. Wullie worked the chair nearest the window, Chris next to him, then there lay an empty chair, occasionally filled on busy Saturdays by a young girl moonlighting from an expensive hairdressers in Kelvinside. At the back of the shop, working the fourth chair, was Barney, and he resented it. Behind him was a small alcove, making the room into a slight L-shape, where there was a fifth seat, a seat which hadn't been worked since the great hair rush of the late seventies, when every man in Britain had wanted a perm, so that they could look as much of an idiot as everyone else. It was some surprise to Barney that he had not been relegated all the way back there.

  There'd been a time when he'd had possession of the coveted window seat – for some fifteen years in fact – but he'd been ousted late one Friday afternoon in a bloodless coup. Wullie had been after the chair for some time and, using the fact that his father owned the shop to his advantage, he'd executed a manoeuvre that had relegated Barney to the back of the room. It'd been the talk of the shop for some time – the talk of hushed voices – but gradually the affair had quietened down, as Wullie had known it would, and they'd settled back into a steady routine.

  However, it had widened the gap between Barney and the other two men. They shared no interests whatsoever and consequently no conversation. And they also shared very few customers, most of them preferring to go to the younger men. Barney was left with a few old boys whose hair he had been cutting for years, a few men who didn't care, and the odd stray first-timers who didn't know any better.

  He looked over the queue of ten people crammed onto the seat and realised there were none who fitted any of the required categories. They would all be waiting for one of the other two bastards. However, he still had the post-dream-haircut glow about him. Surely at least one of them would have surveyed the majesty of the hair on the bloke who had just left. Surely brilliance such as that would not go unnoticed.

  He looked at the row of men, each with their private thoughts about the ordeal awaiting them. A mini-Death Row. Some sat with anticipatory relish, some were nervous, some were angry, present only on the instructions of their wives. Or mothers.

  'Who's next?' said Barney, with the confident air of a fighter who takes on all comers.

  Like a row of disciples denying all knowledge of Jesus under the scrutiny of an awkward centurion, most of the ten stared blankly ahead, ignoring him as best they could. The two or three nearest him felt obliged to shake their heads, although only one of them could do it while looking him in the eye. Barney gave them an incredulous stare, but since they were all ignoring him, it was wasted. A change in strategy was required.

  It is frequently effective for the unemployed barber to remorselessly select individuals who may well crack under the pressure of personal attention. Another useful lesson from Barber School, which Barney had never forgotten.

  'You, my good man,' he said pointing to the chap at the head of the queue, 'come on.'

  He had chosen unwisely, however, for this was not a man to be browbeaten. He looked Barney in the eye, unconcerned about such things as direct appeals.

  'It's all right mate, I'm going to wait for Chris, thanks.'

  Bloodied, but not yet beaten, Barney nodded. 'Fair enough.' He pointed to the next in line. 'You then, my man, on you come.'

  The man shuffled his feet and stared at the floor, remembering the words of his wife as he'd left the house; 'Here you, mind and no' let that old bastard at your hair, 'cause you know what he did the last time, and if you come home and you've no' got your hair cut, I'll be like that, so I will, I'll be like that, get back out there. See if you spend that money down the boozer, I'll be like that. I will.' Finally shook his head.

  Barney rolled his eyes, gritted his teeth, looked like he was going to punch someone. Did his best to remember the lessons he'd learned from years past, and kept his cool. Perseverance, that was what was needed. Someone would eventually crack. He just had to make sure it wasn't him.

  He gestured to the next chap, who noiselessly gestured towards Chris. Barney gritted his teeth again. He wasn't coping with this at all well. One more. He'd try one more.

  'Here you, what about you?' he said to the next in line, his temper beginning to spill over.

  The man ignored the tone of voice. 'No thanks mate, I'm just going to wait for Wullie, if that's all right.'

  The final straw, settling gently on the camel's back. Forgetting everything he'd learned at Barber School, Barney cracked.

  'No, it bloody well isn't all right.' He stared angrily up and down the row of embarrassed faces. 'Not one of you, eh? Not one of you is willing to get your hair cut by me? Am I that bad?'

  He pointed towards the closed door. 'Did you not see that haircut I just did. Bloody stoatir, so it was. And you're all going to wait for these two,' he said, sneering. 'It's three-thirty now. If you all wait for them, some of you aren't going to get your haircut at all. I've just pulled off one of the finest haircuts this shop's seen in months, and yet you all just sit there like bloody sheep.' He stared them up and down. 'Well?'

  He was aware of the beating of his heart, the redness in his face. Began to feel a bit of an idiot, but something drove him on. Searching for the one who looked the most sheepish, the most likely to crack under pressure.

  'You!' he said, pointing. The chap turned reluctantly to look at him. 'Aye, you, young man. How about you? I'll do you a nice Gregory Peck, something like that.'

  It was a lad of about seventeen and, with pleasure, Barney realised that he was about to give in. He would have his chance to show the rest of these bastards what a decent haircut looked like.

  'Look Barney, if they all want to wait for Chris or me, then that's fine. You can't have a go at the customers. Someone else will come in shortly'

  Slowly, Barney turned and looked over at the window. Wullie stood wagging a pair of scissors in Barney's direction. Barney stared back. His heart beat a little faster.

  The bastard. The total bastard. That he should have humiliated Barney in front of all these customers.

  He stood with his feet spread. An aggressive stance, ready for a fight. Wull
ie was having none of it. He murmured something to his customer and took a few paces towards Barney. He spoke in a quiet voice, but it was a small enough shop that there was no way that anyone could miss what was said. At the last second, and with a fine sense of diplomacy, Chris turned on his hair-dryer to create some background noise.

  'Look Barney, don't think that I'm embarrassing you in front of the customers. You're embarrassing yourself. And them. If they don't want to come to you, it's no bother. Just leave them to it. Gregory Peck, for fuck's sake.'

  Barney grumbled something about not leaving them to it, without having the guts to really say it.

  'I'll talk to you about it later, Barney, if that's all right with you.'

  Barney stared at Wullie, the anger boiling up inside him, but contained for all that. He nodded a bitter nod, sat down in his chair, roughly lifted the paper, and made no attempt to read it.

  The moment had passed, but tension still hung thick in the air. Barney looked at his paper for a few seconds, then turned the corner down and glanced menacingly over at the row of men sitting trying to ignore him.

  It was the first time he'd felt so humiliated since the window seat debacle, and while he'd eventually let that one pass, there was no way he was going to let Wullie talk to him like that in front of all these bloody goons.

  Chris silenced his hair-dryer – much to the relief of the man at the other end of the warm blast – then the only sound in the shop was the quiet snip of two pairs of scissors going about their business. Finally the man at the whim of Wullie's hand asked him if he'd read the gossip about some film star of whom Barney had never even heard, and slowly the shop returned to normal. The quiet hum of pointless chatter, interspersed with electric razors and the gentle flop of hair to the floor.

  Then, with the elegant timing of a Victorian watch, the door to the shop swung open. Ten pairs of eyes looked expectantly. The possibility that here might be someone to assuage their guilt. It was a man in his late twenties, unaware of the cauldron into which he had just walked. Quietly closed the door, took his place at the end of the queue.